Although inkjet textile printing of hydrophobic textile material such as polyester textile by using disperse dyes still has such problems as low speed compared with screen textile printing and so on, it has such advantages that a plate making process is not needed, printed samples can be quickly made, the requirement of small lot processing in a short time for quick delivery is easily met, and it can be interlocked with a CAD system, so it has just started to be widely performed (Non-Patent Literature 1 and Non-Patent Literature 2).
Inkjet textile printing of polyester textile is roughly classified mainly into two methods, the direct printing method where dye ink is applied (printed) to a textile followed by fixing the dye to the textile by heat treatment such as high temperature steaming; and the thermal transfer printing method where dye ink is applied (printed) to an intermediate recording medium (special transfer paper) followed by sublimation transfer of the dye from the intermediate recording medium to the textile by heating.
The direct printing method is used mainly in applications of textile materials for garments, car sheets and the like, and requires four processes as follows:
1. Pretreatment process: Size such as water-soluble polymer is applied to the textile in advance by the padding method or the like in order to prevent ink bleeding in forming a pattern on a textile using an ink jet printer (Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2)2. Printing process: Dye ink is applied to a textile by an ink jet printer3. Fixation Process: The dye applied to the textile is fixed in the textile by heat treatment4. Washing process: Dye, size and the like which are unfixed are removed from the textile
On the other hand, the thermal transfer printing is used mainly for printing and finishing of flags and banners, and in the ink is used a dye which has excellent transfer properties into polyester by heat treatment and good sublimation properties. The working process has two processes as follows:
1. Printing process: Dye ink is applied to an intermediate medium by an ink jet printer
2. Transfer Process: The dye is transferred and fixed in a textile from the intermediate medium by heat treatment
and various commercially available transfer papers can be used, so this method does not require pretreatment and washing process is skipped for the application of flags and banners. However, the thermal transfer printing method has such problems that transfer failure and the like easily occur due to wrinkles of transfer paper in the transfer process, sublimation fastness is inferior due to using a dye having good sublimation properties, and light fastness in the full color is inferior due to the limited number of the dyes having both good sublimation properties and high light fastness,    Non-Patent Literature 1: Journal of the Imaging Society of Japan, volume 41, issue 2, page 68 (2002)    Non-Patent Literature 2: Senshoku Keizai Shinbun, issued on Jan. 28, 2004 (some abstract part of Melliand INTERNATIONAL)    Patent Literature 1: JP S61-55277 Page 3    Patent Literature 2: JP 2004-292468